Blood Faerie by India Drummond [Book Review]

I picked this up on kindle on a special offer, and finally got round to reading it over the summer holidays. I’ve enjoyed the Iron Druid stories, and it seemed to share some level of realism with those. Not exactly the same, but not a sparkly urban fantasy tale either. The faerie lore was quite different, and so were the druids. Blood Faerie is set in the real world, and magic happens without us noticing. So worth a read, especially on special offer.

Blood Faerie Review

I enjoyed it quite a lot. I would certainly read more in this world. The premise of the story is that there are some kinds of magic that the faeries don’t tolerate. The Blood magic in the title being one of those forbidden paths. Another is the ethereal, which our lead faerie (Eilidh) does. The Faeries believe that once you start down a path then you are stuck with it. So prefering one of the forbidden paths is a death sentence to any faerie discovered on it.

Eilidh escaped this fate, but cannot return to the faerie kingdom as a result. This is painful for her, cut off from her source of contentment. She lives out in the human world, hiding in the midst of the city of Perth (Scotland). As darkness falls the faerie kingdom expands into the shadows and green spaces. Faerie has trouble with concentrations of people, and the corruption of nature by cities and large towns. This creates opportunities for her to meet up with her old people when she experiences the blood faerie. The blood faerie is killing humans to gain power. At first it isn’t clear who or why, but the picture slowly builds.

PC Munro finds the first body. He has a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or perhaps the right place at the right time. Unlike others he senses her. We see that there’s something strange about Munro from the beginning. Part of the book is about both of them realising that they are capable of more than they think. The other part is a straightforward murder mystery as they try to enlist help from other faeries to catch the blood faerie. Even when they do it isn’t without cost.

Summary

Overall this was a brilliant piece of world building and a good introduction to a couple of fascinating characters, one faerie and one druid. My only real criticism was that it escalated a little too rapidly for my liking. There’s so much more to explore in the setting and characters and their background before escalating is needed. The character development is possibly a little too rapid, there’s an instant bonding of the pair, and no real hesitations. This seems a little unrealistic, although magic.

The other thing is that there are bits of info dump in places, lots of Q&A, which is better than a straight info dump, but not quite proper show. I think it could be fixed with a good edit. This could cut out some of the less necessary bits, and further develop the characters development so that we see real dilemmas with actions and decisions that show us the characters.